TY - GEN
T1 - "Do users do what they think they do?"-A comparative study of user perceived and actual information searching behaviour in the National electronic Library of Infection
AU - Roy, Anjana
AU - Kostkova, Patty
AU - Catchpole, Mike
AU - Carson, Ewart
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - In the last decade, the Internet has profoundly changed the delivery of healthcare. Medical websites for professionals and patients are playing an increasingly important role in providing the latest evidence-based knowledge for professionals, facilitating virtual patient support groups, and providing an invaluable information source for patients. Information seeking is the key user activity on the Internet. However, the discrepancy between what information is available and what the user is able to find has a profound effect on user satisfaction. The UK National electronic Library of Infection (NeLI, www.neli.org.uk) and its subsidiary projects provide a single-access portal for quality-appraised evidence in infectious diseases. We use this national portal, as test-bed for investigating our research questions. In this paper, we investigate actual and perceived user navigation behaviour that reveals important information about user perceptions and actions, in searching for information. Our results show: (i) all users were able to access information they were seeking; (ii) broadly, there is an agreement between "reported" behaviour (from questionnaires) and "observed" behaviour (from web logs), although some important differences were identified; (iii) both browsing and searching were equally used to answer specific questions and (iv) the preferred route for browsing for data on the NeLI website was to enter via the "Top Ten Topics" menu option. These findings provide important insights into how to improve user experience and satisfaction with health information websites.
AB - In the last decade, the Internet has profoundly changed the delivery of healthcare. Medical websites for professionals and patients are playing an increasingly important role in providing the latest evidence-based knowledge for professionals, facilitating virtual patient support groups, and providing an invaluable information source for patients. Information seeking is the key user activity on the Internet. However, the discrepancy between what information is available and what the user is able to find has a profound effect on user satisfaction. The UK National electronic Library of Infection (NeLI, www.neli.org.uk) and its subsidiary projects provide a single-access portal for quality-appraised evidence in infectious diseases. We use this national portal, as test-bed for investigating our research questions. In this paper, we investigate actual and perceived user navigation behaviour that reveals important information about user perceptions and actions, in searching for information. Our results show: (i) all users were able to access information they were seeking; (ii) broadly, there is an agreement between "reported" behaviour (from questionnaires) and "observed" behaviour (from web logs), although some important differences were identified; (iii) both browsing and searching were equally used to answer specific questions and (iv) the preferred route for browsing for data on the NeLI website was to enter via the "Top Ten Topics" menu option. These findings provide important insights into how to improve user experience and satisfaction with health information websites.
KW - Digital library
KW - Evaluation
KW - User perceived and actual behaviour
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84885888641&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-11745-9_15
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-11745-9_15
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84885888641
SN - 3642117449
SN - 9783642117442
T3 - Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
SP - 96
EP - 103
BT - Electronic Healthcare - Second International ICST Conference, eHealth 2009, Revised Selected Papers
T2 - 2nd International ICST Conference on Electronic Healthcare, eHealth 2009
Y2 - 23 September 2009 through 25 September 2009
ER -